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It's been years in the making, literally. Sling Media announced the Slingbox Pro-HD and the Sling Catcher at CES 2007, and then again at CES 2008. A product pairing so exciting, it deserved to be announced twice!

Well, the Slingbox Pro-HD arrived in the house of Toyman yesterday and was up and running within ten minutes. Partially. I was able to hook up the box to the Tivo HD and home network within five minutes, but that's where the ease of setup stopped. After downloading the Mac SlingPlayer software, I was able to get a video and audio signal on my computer, but that's all. I couldn't setup the virtual remote to control the Tivo HD, which makes the Slingbox useless.

It wasn't until 20 minutes had passed that I discovered that I needed to run the Windows SlingPlayer to complete the setup. There is some kind of glitch in the Mac software that was preventing me from configuring the video/audio inputs. Thank goodness for VMware.

But my problems persisted. I still couldn't remotely control the Tivo HD. No changing channels, no pausing, nothing. The Sling Media support site is rather sparse, but I did find tips on how to check if the IR blaster was working correctly, which it wasn't. The cable is defective and requires a replacement. In the meantime, I've jerry-rigged a temporary fix that involves a paperclip and scotch tape. Didn't you hear? My other nickname is MacGyver.

Now that things are working, albeit a temporary fix, I'm very impressed with the video quality on my computer. Now I just need to wait for the second piece of the puzzle: the SlingCatcher.

CLO Software's $1.99 Traffic is one of my new favorite iPhone apps. I find myself using it almost every day commuting to and from work. Yes, Google maps has a traffic overlay, but Traffic shows you a listing of traffic conditions in your area. As the iTunes description states, "Traffic makes location-based traffic reports simple and convenient." I agree.

This is why I bought an iPhone: $301 to play a classic hand held game from the 70's. I can't tell you how much time I spent playing that game as a kid, but I still see those red LEDs in my dreams.

Macworld LED Football review.

I've only had the Kodak Zi6 for a day, so I haven't come to any conclusions about the overall quality yet. My initial impressions: good color reproduction and video compression, but motion blur and jittery video can be distracting.

Kodak Zi6 - 60 FPS from Matt Ferrell on Vimeo.

Have you ever missed a TV show and wished that there were an easy, legal way watch it? Okay, maybe the legal part didn't cross your mind, but I'm sure the easy part did.

Loading up your Bitorrent client and downloading a show can sometimes be a labor of love. And by labor, I mean finding a tracker that's still seeded well and then waiting for the entire file to download before you can start watching the video. Your cable provider might offer ondemand services, but the offerings are limited and sometimes expensive. That's where online video services like iTunes and Amazon Unbox come to the rescue. Sort of.

Right now we're in the wild, wild west stage of internet video delivery. Much like the radio boom of the early twentieth century, everyone and their Uncle are starting videocasts (aka. Podcasts) or offering up video download services. You can never have too many video shows about how to do a video show. I'm subscribed to about 12 of them right now. One of the latest additions to this crowded internet video field is Amazon Unbox.

For the most part, internet video is limited to display on your computer. I don't know about you, but watching a television show on my computer monitor is like going to church. I sit on an uncomfortable seat, have to fight off massive back spasms, and am overcome by waves of fatigue. Call me crazy, but sitting on my couch watching a big screen HDTV is a touch more desirable. Enter TiVo.

TiVo and Amazon Unbox have found the perfect partnership. TiVo, losing ground to cable company DVRs with ondemand, can offer subscribers a vast library of video. And Amazon Unbox unshackles their videos from the desktop computer. But is it a win, win?